DHAKA: Bangladesh cricket coach Stuart Law has expressed fears about the team’s scheduled tour to Pakistan, where international cricket has been suspended for three years.
Bangladesh are set to be the first Test-playing nation to visit Pakistan since a gun attack on the Sri Lankan team bus during the Lahore Test in 2009, when eight people died and seven visiting players and an assistant coach were injured.
“It’s got to be made sure by the two associating boards that everyone is 100% safe to go,” Law told the Dhaka-based New Age. “I cannot speak on behalf of the players. I’ve spent time with the players and everyone is a bit concerned. Not just Bangladesh, but the other teams as well. The initial response from the players around the world is, ‘I don’t want to go’.”
Bangladesh will play a One-Day International and one Twenty20 on April 29 and 30 in Lahore, a move hailed by Pakistani political leaders, players and fans. But newspapers in Bangladesh criticised the country’s cricket board chief Mustafa Kamal for agreeing to the tour.
The New Age daily described the decision as ‘irresponsible, unprofessional, autocratic and downright selfish’.
Law, from Australia, declined to confirm if he would go on the tour, while Bangladesh’s cricket authorities said they were seeking clearance from the International Cricket Council.
Law grabs new role in Australia
Meanwhile, Cricket Australia announced it had appointed Law to a high-performance role at Australian cricket’s Centre of Excellence.
Law, who played one test and 54 ODIs for Australia, will return to his home city of Brisbane to take up the appointment. He will assist Centre of Excellence head coach Troy Cooley in providing tactical and technical support and development to Australian cricketers in the state and national programmes.
“The opportunity to return home to be closer with family and work in Brisbane with Australia’s established and emerging talent was too good to pass up.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 18th, 2012.
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Is Pakistan ready for International cricket??? We need to put our house in order first
Bpl(Bangladesh premier league) became successful because of Pakistani players & nomination of bcb official in icc is due 2 pcb support, so they ain't doing any favours although they should be glad that they will play with world class players & please don't CRY again if u lose
Ok, are we scared from Going to any place where the situation is Not Good. lets take the Example of India, we have seen several bomb blasts there too, they have their internal issues as well but still IPL is been played.Pak Players are threatened by Shiv Sina. But we still Play there.
The Simple funda is the world want to see Pakistan Isolated.
@someone: Very well said.
he is right...we may want cricket here really badly, but let's be honest; even we don't know when and where a bomb will go off.. cricket has been banned for a few years here; i fear that if something bad were to happen, it will never come back.Unless we are a 100% safe country to play in, let's not bring more bad repute and that too at the cost of a foreign team's lives! Be patriotic, but more importantly be realistic!
His pal Dav Whatmore seems fine here...